Saudi Arabia Beheads Turk for Drug Trafficking

Saudi Arabia on Thursday beheaded a Turkish man convicted of drug trafficking, the interior ministry said, in the latest execution in the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom.

Ali Agridas had been convicted of receiving a "large amount of drugs" and was executed in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the ministry said in a statement.

His execution brings to 70 the number of Saudis and foreigners beheaded in the kingdom this year, according to an Agence France-Presse count, despite international concern.

Rape, murder, apostasy, drug trafficking and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law.